TVSquad

Well, it was pretty obvious to me where the writers got the idea for this episode. Last summer, a pedophile killed the oldest members of an Idaho family and took the two youngest kids. Just like on SVU, the dead parents were involved in drugs and the biological father of the youngest children was not in the picture. I found tonight's episode incredibly disturbing simply because that real story was so upsetting.

Lou Diamond Phillips played the pedophile who had a history of violently abusing children. Legally, the system couldn't keep him incarcerated anymore, so he was set free on the general public. When Dets. Benson and Stabler caught up with him in the bus station, he eluded them, cut Olivia's neck (superficially wounding her), and then slit the neck of the little boy. He took the girl and disappeared.

From the promos for this episode, I thought it was going to be centered around Olivia, but it turns to Stabler when the little boy gets killed. He blames Olivia for the boy's death because he chose to help her with her neck wound (when he thought it was deadly) instead of grabbing the little boy who was standing right in front of him. Luckily, Stabler is a little more open to the help of a shrink these days and he seeks out Dr. Wong.

Benson is tracking past locations of the perp's cell phone when Stabler meets up with her at an abandoned chemical warehouse in New Jersey. They smell cigarettes and split up to look for the pedophile. Olivia hears a crash and comes running to find the pedophile has Stabler with a gun to his head (did you see Mariska Hargitay's stunt double do a dive onto the floor? No way was that her!). Stabler tells Benson to shoot the guy but Benson tries to talk him down. Victor starts lying about killing the little girl, but when he realizes Olivia is about to shoot him, he changes his story and starts to suggest that maybe the girl is still alive. He keeps lying and the dialogue turns to Olivia and Elliot, as he tries to talk her into shooting the pedophile. She doesn't end up doing it because back-up arrives and a sniper takes the guy down. They find the little girl, but now everything is weird in Olivia and Elliot's relationship. They both chose each other over the job on this case. Elliot tells Olivia that all he has in the world is the job and her. The show ends with Olivia asking the Captain for a new partner.